SEATTLE — Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has no intention of altering Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball, and said the sport’s commercial deals with gambling companies have no impact on the status of the career hits leader.
Rose agreed to a lifetime ban in 1989 after an investigation for Major League Baseball by lawyer John Dowd found Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team.
The Hall of Fame’s board decided in 1991 that players on the permanently ineligible list also may not appear on the Hall ballot. Rose asked the Hall in 2016 to change the rule.
Rose applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with Commissioner Bud Selig in 2002, but Selig never ruled on Rose’s application. Manfred succeeded Selig in 2015 and rejected Rose’s application.
“We’ve always approached the issue of gambling from the proposition that players and other people who are in a position to influence the outcome of the game are going to be subject to a different set of rules than everyone else in the world,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday.
“Pete Rose violated what is sort of rule one in baseball, and the consequences of that are clear in the rule, and we’ve continued to abide by our own rules,” Manfred added. “It’s just the rules are different for players. It’s part of the responsibility that comes with the privilege of being a major league player.”
Manfred minimized MLB’s revenue from gaming companies.
“I think people believe we make more money off gambling than we actually do,” he said.
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